Biblical Advice For Everyday Problems
“In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.” (Psalms 5:3)I once wrote a column about a diet I tried that prompted a reader from Roxboro to telephone me. “Could you help me?” she said. “I don’t know what to do!”
I understood her pain. I’ve gained a lot more weight than I’ve ever lost and will never forget the depression and sense of defeat that accompanies weight gain. In fact, research tells us that the vast majority of people who lose weight eventually gain it all back, and then some. So I realize that my fight with obesity will never end. Indeed, it is a life-long struggle.
I encouraged the caller to consult a physician who specializes in weight loss, but she confided in me that she could not afford to see a doctor. I then realized that I should follow the advice I’ve given so many times and suggested she turn to her church family. However, I emphasized that her church family was not just those with whom she attended church, but anyone or any church in her community that was Christian.
“Find yourself a good weight-loss program through one of the churches where you live,” I suggested. “If your church doesn’t have one, get on the phone and call some of the larger churches. You don’t have to attend their church to attend their class. I promise you there’s one in your area.”
Church-sponsored weight loss programs are popping up everywhere. Finally the Church is beginning to realize that it can no longer ignore the personal problems with which we all struggle. Issues like money management, weight loss, and tobacco addictions are just of few of the problems that haunt the everyday, run-of-the-mill Christians. Many of today’s Christians need more than just a good sermon.
The truth is churches need to show Christians how to use the Bible to deal with the everyday problems we face. I learned, for example, that the Bible offers a lot of advice about what and how we should eat. The problem is we’re too busy thinking about our next meal to notice it. Shamefully, food becomes our god and distances in many ways from the God we know.
The most difficult adjustment we have to make, besides reducing the amount we eat, is reducing the amount of meat we consume each day. Did you know that the average American eats 225 pounds of meat a year, almost ten ounces a day? Many diets often restrict our intake of meat to as little as four to six ounces a day.
There’s a story in Daniel that supports the low-protein lifestyle change that many of our doctors recommend. Daniel and several other Hebrews in Babylonian captivity were ordered to give up their largely vegetarian diet in favor of the fatty meat and wine of the royal court, into which they had been forcibly adopted.
According to Daniel 1, the prophet persuaded their guard to allow them to continue a diet of grain, vegetables, fruit, and water for 10 days, while the heavier fare was given to a group of servants. At the end of the test, the exiles were in such demonstrably better health that they were allowed to go on eating as they wished.
I have also found it that the Bible provides a good bit of instruction about how to lose weight. It also responds equally well to those of us who are having problems with money, marriage, work…you name it.
It’s the most popular book ever published and almost every house has at least one of them, somewhere. Pick yours up and ask God to help you find the answers to your everyday questions. You’ll be surprised by what you’ll learn and you’ll just love the new friend you’ve made.
God Looks Beyond Our Faults…And Our Pride!
“And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found.’” (Luke 15:31-32)I have to give credit to my pastor for this devotion. He recently preached a sermon on the prodigal son that inspired me to think about the “other son” in the parable. His slant on the meaning of this parable was both fresh and provoking.
Interestingly, a number of the newer bible translations refer to this parable as the Parable of the Lost Son rather than the Parable of the Prodigal Son. I invite you to read the parable at Luke 15 and ask yourself, “Who really is the “lost son” here?
You know the story. It’s one of the most familiar accounts in Scripture. A father of two sons was approached by his younger son who demanded his inheritance. After receiving it, he moved far away where he squandered his fortune by living foolishly. When a famine came, he had no money and went to work for a farmer feeding pigs. He realized that his father’s servants were better off than he so he decided to go home and beg for his father’s forgiveness. His father not only forgave him, he threw a barbecue to celebrate his homecoming. “For this my son was dead and is alive again,” his father said. “He was lost and is found.” (Luke 15:24)
The other son couldn’t believe his eyes. “These many years I have been serving you,” he angrily told his father. “I never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this son of yours came, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him.” (Luke 15:29-30)
The contrast between the two brothers is important. One by his own admission didn’t deserve his father’s forgiveness; the other was too good to see the need for it.
When it comes to salvation, I worry most about the “good sons” in this world. It’s hard for them to see their need for salvation. They are often so blinded by their own goodness that they think all they have to do to go to heaven is to die. The truth is it is they who are living life on the edge –dangerously close to missing out on the mystery of salvation.
It would have been a perfect ending if both of the sons in the parable had come understand and experience their father’s forgiveness. Even though the brothers were very different, their father’s love for them was the very same. He loved them both of them enough to look beyond both their faults and their pride.
The father portrayed in this parable is pleading with his good son to come into the house. His last words to him are, “All that I have is yours.” (Luke 15:31) While we never know whether the good son ever responded to the invitation, the eternal truth is God did not give up on him.
I take comfort that God will not give up on any of us, or our sons and daughters. “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me,” Jesus said, “and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.” (John 6:37)
His love for us is unconditional and He really does want us to experience all that He has for us.
Facing The Trials Of Life With Joy
“My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials.” (James 1:2)History tells us that Thomas Edison invented the microphone, the phonograph, the incandescent light, the storage battery, movies with sound, and more than 1,000 other things. The truth is the quality of our lives has been immeasurably improved by the genius of a man who overcame dyslexia and found that there was a great deal to learn from the failures and trials that life brought his way.
In 1914, the laboratory where many of Edison’s inventions were birthed caught on fire. Fire companies from eight surrounding towns responded, but inadequate water pressure and intense heat left firefighters with nothing more to do than watch two million dollars in assets that were insured for only $238,000 burn to the ground.
The inventor’s 24 year-old son, Charles, searched frantically for his father. He worried that his father might have been trapped in the structure. When he found him, he was calmly watching the fire, his face glowing in the reflection, his white hair blowing in the wind.
“My heart ached for him,” said Charles. “He was 67- no longer a young man - and everything was going up in flames. When he saw me, he shouted, ‘Charles, where’s your mother?’ When I told him I didn’t know, he said, ‘Find her. Bring her here. She will never see anything like this as long as she lives.’ “
The next morning, Edison looked at the ruins and said, “There is great value in disaster. All our mistakes are burned up. Thank God we can start anew.”
It is hard to face our trials with the spirit that was found in Thomas Edison, but that’s exactly what God expects us to do. You see God knows that real spiritual growth can only come from and through the trials that he allows to come our way. They are ultimately what form the basis for the joy that Christian maturity brings with it.
I ran across a poem recently that’s worth putting on our refrigerators and thinking about when trouble finds us. I don’t know who wrote it, but I sure know the One who inspired it:
It’s sometimes very difficult
For us to understand
The wisdom and the love behind
The things that God has planned.
But we wouldn’t have the rainbow
If we didn’t have the rain;
We wouldn’t know the pleasure
If we never tasted pain.
We wouldn’t love the sunrise
If we hadn’t felt the night;
And we wouldn’t know our weakness
If we hadn’t sensed God’s might.
We couldn’t have the springtime
Or the yellow daffodil
If we hadn’t experienced
The winter’s frosty chill.
And though the brilliant sunshine
Is something God has made.
He knew too much could parch our souls
So He created shade.
So God’s given us a balance:
Enough joys to keep us glad,
Enough tears to keep us humble,
Enough good to balance bad.
And if you’ll trust in Him you’ll see
Though yesterday brought sorrow,
The clouds will part and dawn will bring
A happier tomorrow.
When God Forgives, He Forgets
“He will again have compassion on us, and will subdue our iniquities. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.” (Micah 7:19)My home computer has really been acting kind of crazy lately. It would reboot itself when I checked my e-mail and at other times it would just inexplicably crash or shut down.
I asked a friend about it and he told me that I had so many corrupt files on my hard drive that the operating system was getting confused. He recommended that I back up all my data and reformat my hard drive. In other words, remove the operating system, all of the programs, and re-install everything.
It took most of a day to get it done, but my friend’s advice produced a miracle. It works like a charm now. All of my problems have disappeared.
As I thought about my life as an unbeliever, I realized that I used to be just as confused as my computer. I had a state-of-the-art operating system, one that the God had given me, but it just wouldn’t work with a corrupt lifestyle. I didn’t know what to do, but I knew that if didn’t do something soon, I, too, would crash.
Thank God I had a friend who knew what was wrong with me. She helped me understand that God had not programmed me to live the kind of life I was living and that the lifestyle choices I had made were killing me. The more I listened to her, the more sense she made.
I realized that hope was just a prayer away when she opened God’s Word and showed me some verses. For the first time in my life, I saw myself in those words and understood that the answers to all my problems really were in that Bible. Indeed, I had finally found the Owner’s Manual.
Salvation is still the greatest miracle I have ever seen. I look in the mirror today and pretty much see the same man I saw ten years ago, but inside I am changed. Corruption has given way to righteousness. I am no longer confused about where life’s taking me. My operating system is now working the way that God intended it to work.
All those bad files that were making my computer do some crazy things are now gone. When I performed a clean install, they were replaced with good files. In fact, my computer doesn’t even remember that it ever had even one corrupt file.
Salvation’s the same way. When God comes in, he replaces everything, too - a clean install. And guess what? He doesn’t remember one single sin. In fact, His Word says that they’ve been forgotten just as if they’ve been cast into the deep blue sea.
The point is this: If you know someone who is about to crash, whose life is heading down the wrong road, say something to the. Help them to understand that there are answers to life’s ills. Reassure them that there’s nothing wrong with their operating system. It’s working just as it is designed, but has a few bad files.
Let them know that there really are instructions available to repair their broken life; and that if they will follow them, they, too can one day look in the mirror and thank God for the greatest miracle of all.
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